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278 Fossil Human Bones found in South America. 



at the animal creation which inhabited Brazil immediately before 

 the present geological epoch, and the now existing order of 

 things." The letter first appeared in the " Revista Trimensai" 

 of Rio de Janeiro, 4th volume, 13th fasc, and I therefore thought 

 it might not so soon come to your knowledge, which may ac- 

 count for my venturing to communicate it to you, as an item of 

 new intelligence from South America, by the way of Germany ! 



The information it contains is, indeed, nothing decisive as to 

 the existence of the human species cotemporaneously with those 

 great extinct animals whose remains are found fossilized in the 

 earth's strata. But, as relating to the first instance of the dis- 

 covery of human bones in a fossil state, it is of some interest. 

 After mentioning that, tip to the date of his letter, he had dis- 

 covered in two hundred chalk caves of Brazil, one hundred and 

 fifteen species of mammalia, of which not more than eighty 

 eight are now known to exist there, the writer proceeds: 



" In the midst of these numerous proofs of an order of things 

 quite different from the present, I yet have never found the slight- 

 est trace of the existence of man. I supposed therefore, that this 

 question was decided, that human bones no where occur, when, 

 unexpectedly, after six years' toil, I had the good fortune to find 

 these bones; and, indeed, under circumstances which admit of 

 speaking with some certainty in favor of their occurring again. 

 These bones I fell upon in a cave, mingled with the bones of 

 decidedly extinct animals, as for example, of the Platyonyx 

 Bucklandii, Chlamydotlierium Humboldtii, C. niajus, Dasypus 

 sulcatus, Hydrochcerus sulcidens, fyc, which directed my whole 

 attention to these remarkable remains. Besides, they all bore 

 the stamp of genuine fossil bones, inasmuch as they were partly 

 converted to stone, and partly impregnated with small particles of 

 oxide of iron, which not only gave them an extraordinary weight, 

 but even to some of them a metallic glistening. As to the great 

 age of these bones, no doubt can exist ; but whether they date 

 from the times of those animals, with the bones of which they 

 were found lying together, in company, is a question which does 

 not admit of being determined with equal certainty, since the 

 cave is on the edge of a lake, of which the waters are yearly 

 driven into it in the rainy season. Not only, therefore, might 

 animal remains by degrees come there, but those brought there by 

 the flowing of the water at later periods, might also mingle with 

 the earlier. This supposition has in fact received confirmation, in 



